That's why in September, competitors AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile joined together to create the Mobile Authentication Task Force. Their goal was to cook up a new and improved security solution for their devices. They announced Thursday at the 2018 Mobile World Congress that their solution will undergo trial testing in the coming weeks and might be available by the end of the year, according to Engadget.

How does this solution work? The Mobile Authentication Task Force promises that it will be powered by the carriers' networks and will deliver cryptographically verified phone number and profile data to properly authorized apps, following user consent. Other authenticating factors will be considered, including IP address and SIM card attributes.

And of course it's 2018, so no new technology would be complete without a bit of machine learning. In this case, machine learning would help assess risk and learn user behavior patterns.

The task force says it will launch a website later this year for interested service providers.